Phil Brown - Travel Stories
Singapore sojourn
A swish new hotel is the perfect base camp from which to explore this fantastic city -
Review Phil Brown - Qweekend, The Courier-Mail, Jan 20-21, 2024
When holidaying in South East Asia your choice of hotel is all important. It's your oasis after a hot, busy day out before you start your evening adventures.
On a recent visit to Singapore we stayed at one of its newest five-star hotels, the Pullman Singapore Orchard, which is barely a year old. We love the Pullman brand, part of the Accor Hotels group, and have stayed in a couple of Pullman hotels in Sydney and one in Hong Kong.
This new Singapore property has a boutique feel. It's swish and the location on Orchard Rd is in the middle of Singapore's premier shopping district.
It's a hotel but it feels like home after a few days. After busy mornings it was lovely to come back and laze by the pool (they call it the P.S.O. Beach Club) in one of the cozy cabanas. The nearby Atelier Lounge is the spot for snacks, coffee or drinks (mocktails for me, bubbles for my wife) and their Eden restaurant is good any time of day. The breakfast buffet is sumptuous and offers European and Asian cuisine. There are 326 innovative fashion-inspired rooms with a range of configurations and we were lucky enough to stay in one of the Club Residence Rooms with access to the hotel's Archive Club, a multipurpose executive lounge with a popular happy hour. It starts at 5pm so get there early for the canapes.
The staff are youthful, friendly and keen to offer local travel tips which is nice.
Pullman Singapore Orchard is handy to everything and a five-minute walk to two major MRT underground rail stations, Somerset and Orchard. From these you can get pretty well everywhere in Singapore - directly to Marina Bay Sands and Gardens by The Bay. You can head for Chinatown, Changi, Kampong Glam and busy Arab St or to Bukit Timah, where you can walk in a jungle-like nature reserve. (A warning: beware the monkeys.)
Back on Orchard Rd the hotel's front doors are directly opposite the Bideford St entrance to the Paragon, one of Singapore's premier shopping centres. All the biggies are nearby - Takashimaya, Ion Orchard Mall, Ngee Ann City (home to Kinokuniya, our favourite book store) and many more along this glittering strip.
Orchard Rd is busy, fun, safe, the shops are open late and it is lovely to see the dog walkers parading up and down.
Shopping centres in Singapore are a cool respite and famous for their food courts. Takashimaya's is one of the best and Ion Orchard Mall's offerings are good, too. Seek out King of Fried Rice in Hawker's Street on level B4 and you will not be disappointed. As ritzy as shopping on Orchard Rd can be there are still places to shop and eat at bargain prices such as the perennial, if slightly dodgy, Lucky Plaza. Do not go there on a Sunday though because that is when thousands of Filipino maids use it as their social hub on their day off. It's a crazy scene.
There are treats in the neighbourhood that don't involve shopping. Stroll up Emerald Hill Rd, a frangipani-scented street full of old terrace residences with some funky bars in fetching renovated traditional Chinese shophouses.
I discovered Killiney Kopitiam, a 10- minute walk from the hotel on Killiney Rd, a traditional cafe established in 1915. Here you can enjoy strong kopi (local coffee with condensed milk) and a serve of a traditional kaya coconut jam which you have on toast with a side of soft-boiled eggs eaten with dashes of soy sauce. This place was bustling with locals ... and us, squeezed into a tiny table in the corner. There's plenty more to do in the neighborhood using Pullman Singapore Orchard as base camp. And what a fine base camp it is.
Phil Brown
